Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is data processing, or, more specifically, methods, apparatus, and computer program products for predictive block allocation in a flash device.
Description of Related Art
The development of the EDVAC computer system of 1948 is often cited as the beginning of the computer era. Since that time, computer systems have evolved into extremely complicated devices. Today's computers are much more sophisticated than early systems such as the EDVAC. Computer systems typically include a combination of hardware and software components, application programs, operating systems, processors, buses, memory, input/output devices, and so on. As advances in semiconductor processing and computer architecture push the performance of the computer higher and higher, more sophisticated computer software has evolved to take advantage of the higher performance of the hardware, resulting in computer systems today that are much more powerful than just a few years ago.
One area of advancement includes data storage devices, including flash storage devices. While flash storage devices generally allow for fast access time, blocks within a flash storage device have a limited life cycle. Consequently, methods have been developed for wear leveling so that blocks may generally have similar life cycles. However, traditional methods for wear leveling occur after data has been written to a flash device.